Then few months later they launched the mini expecting it to sell even more or something. Somehow they missed that everyone that wanted a small phone had just bought the SE, and it just wasn't long enough for them to be worth upgrading to the much better mini.
Had they waited for a year to pass the mini might have done much better because those who wanted a more powerful phone could find an excuse for an upgrade after a year, less then 6 months, not so much.
iPhone SE 1st gen 2016 (Discontinued 2018)
iPhone 12 Mini 2020 (Discontinued 2022)
iPhone SE 2nd gen 2020 (Discontinued 2022)
iPhone 13 Mini 2021 (Discontinued 2023)
iPhone SE 3rd gen 2022 (Discontinued 2025)
My wife, I, and several people I know had iPhone 12 or 13 Mini. Their battery life was pretty terrible and word soon got out it was. I think this was in the end what killed it for people who are normally buying Apple flagships and were considering a Mini. It was very hard to get through the day with a Mini.
Besides the abysmal battery life, I think the market for small phones is maybe simply not there. Samsung keeps around one smaller model (base S-series) and arguably the Z Flip is a smaller model (but persistent hardware issues). If there was a large demand for flagship-class small phones, I am sure some Android manufacturers would make them.
My phone isn't some entertainment device, it's a utility tool. I don't need it to be "smart", it should be useful on the go. The persona sketched by GP just isn't me: Messaging, maps, weather, 2FA, and calculator come first, email (read only) and news feed second, the camera is a third for documenting purposes (if even, I'd rather take my full frame). The easier it is to carry this thing around and the longer lasting its build quality, the better. Why would I pay almost double (USD 699 VS 399 on launch) for a less robust mini with sharper edges?!
If Apple were to continue the offer of rehashed designs from previous generations (preferably with rounder edges) for a SE line, limit its dimensions to never go beyond 140x67.5x8mm, and make it last for solid 5-year release cycles, then count me in as your most loyal customer. As it currently stands I'm looking out for a small sized phone from any manufacturer. I would even lower my expectations on support cycle and build quality quite a bit (if reasonable priced) before I'd give in on the size.
My hypothesis about the supposed non-existence of the small phone buyer is that they very much do exist (personally, haven't bought anything other than whatever was the smallest Xperia at the time in more than a decade), but that this group has little overlap with the group willing to buy for list price on release day. But the perception of success of a given phone is very much dominated by the latter, the long tail of buyers isn't really seen. Even if the release day premium over mid-lifecycle street price (in countries where price fixing is not allowed) goes to the retailer and is of very little interest to the manufacturer.
Manufacturers should just move compacts to a three year cycle and forget everything about hyper-optimizing desirability for the kind of buyer who spends too much time reading questionable review sites.
Most of them don't care about the premium features of larger phones. So the Mini was a weird niche within a niche. Small phone with premium price and features.
The Mini and SE2 were virtually identical in physical size. For the 16e they should have used the iPhone 12/13 Mini body and the 13 Mini screen. Use the 15 Pro SoC with 8GB memory, and the 15 camera. Sell it for an SE price. Now you have fused the small phone and budget iPhone markets.
Regardless, battery life is horrendous now, and it's starting to lag and fail so when the new ultra watch is released I'm going to replace my phone with it.
With 3rd party batteries it can't do this, so it doesn't (I think, will admit I'm not entirely sure exactly how iOS deals with 3rd party batteries it can't determine the status of), and if you replaced it with an official part then it would have been in good condition, so regardless which road you took, it's possible that you went from a state where the OS was clocking down, to one where it wasn't anymore.
I love my iPhone 13 Mini. Its only issues are battery life (now), and non-competitive camera. I'm personally happy with the photos it takes, but then I look at my girlfriend's shots and get FOMO.
While I doubt it's economical, I'd love a small, simple phone with juiced up camera. I'd be fine with worse battery life as external batteries can remedy that in a pinch.
I've gone iPhone -> 3GS -> 4 -> 5s -> 6s -> 7 -> SE 2020 -> SE 2022.
The Mini never interested me. I love the SE. I love the home button and TouchID. I love the traditional size. If I want more I have an iPad Pro (12.9" original 2015 model bought in 2015 -- the battery still lasts 2 weeks with my usage pattern) or M1 Mac Mini with a 32" 4k screen.
If they don't make a new SE model I don't know what I'll do. I guess, firstly, get a new battery for it before it's out of the support window. Maybe sometime next year. And then see how long app updates support whatever the last OS version it will run is.
The ONLY thing I'd change in my SE, if it was possible, is more than 4 GB of RAM. The latest models have 8 GB and the others at the time the SE was sold already had 6 GB.
With recent system updates I'm getting a lot more of applications restarting when I switch back to them. This is mostly not a huge problem, except that the X app loses your place in the "Following" stream if you're more than a few hours behind and the app reloads.
Unlike many it seems, I don't care much about the camera. I'd probably want some sort of camera for scanning QR codes, or snapping a quick photo of something I want to look up later, but otherwise I don't take photos or videos on my phone. I don't use any social media on my phone other than text messaging. This makes the smaller battery size/capacity a non-issue.
Since Apple no longer makes a reasonably-sized phone I'll probably go back to Android after this one dies or becomes unsupported.
I also think it's silly to carry a $1,000 device around with you everywhere, so a "premium" small phone is probably a non-starter for me. My favorite phones were the ~$200 Moto-G phones I had before I got the iPhone (it was a gift).
The iPhone 13 Mini made up around 3% of total iPhone sales, so there's clearly a market for compact, mid-range phones ($600-$700). You can manufacture them in China or India for somewhere between $250 and $400, depending on the battery, camera, and overall performance.
The real challenge is that the retail price of a mid-range Android phone can't go over the $500 mark. People in developing countries are always stuck trying to balance quality with price. And for $500 bucks they expect a prime phone nowadays.
I currently have this problem (iPhone 11). It's not slight at all. Keyboard inputs sometimes has up to a full 1000ms latency and that's with autocorrect, suggestions, and spellcheck turned off. Scrolling in most apps are jumpy rather than smooth. When this phone dies, I don't know what I'll get. Hopefully a good linux phone exists by then.
Also having a laptop means the battery doesn't matter that much as you can just charge it off that.